Gary Johnson and Today’s Libertarianism

I’m getting a lot of emails from you guys asking about my opinion on this. Here we go:

1. I’m not going to vote for him, because I’m not going to vote. No one can save the now inevitable collapse of the US and Europe. You might be able to slow the collapse by a few years, but you’re not going to prevent it. The last shot we had to turn things around was during the 1990s, but that was a long time ago.

Even if Gary Johnson became president (which he could not) he would not be able to save anything. Same goes for Trump, by the way.

2. Just like Bernie Sanders, Gary Johnson is not going to win the election and never had a chance in hell to begin with. If you want to vote for a libertarian just for fun, or as a protest vote, go for it. But Hillary or Trump will still be president, and the US is still screwed.

Would it be nice to have a libertarian president? Sure. Not going to happen though. The elites would never allow it, and libertarian ideas are wildy unpopular. Which leads me to my next point…

3. Just because Johnson is polling at 11% in some polls, doesn’t mean people suddenly like libertarian ideas. Human beings hate libertarianism. The concept of personal freedom and being responsible for your own actions and decisions is utterly terrifying to both left-wing progressives and right-wing conservatives.

No one wants small government. Left-wingers want the mommy state to give them free stuff and fix all of their problems for them. Right-wingers want the big daddy state to start wars and crack down on people they don’t like. Libertarians represent about 0% of the European electorate and about 5%, at best, of the American electorate, and that’s only if you include all libertarians plus hard libertarian-leaning Republicans.

Remember that Ron Paul, the best representative of libertarianism we’ve ever had (and another guy who never had a chance in hell of winning anything), only got a pitiful 10% of the Republican vote, which itself is only 50% of the electorate in the US. That means 5%.

Yet another reason for people’s hatred, or at least strong discomfort with libertarianism is the confusion between libertarians and anarchists. As I’ve talked about before, many people think libertarianism means no government. This situation is exacerbated by libertarians who indeed are anarchists.

There are two kinds of libertarians: anarchists and minarchists.

An anarchist, or anarcho-capitalist which is a more accurate term, wants no government and to have everything handled by charity or the free market.

Minarchists, like myself, don’t like government much either, but reluctantly agree that you have to have some government because that’s what human beings tend to like. They just want that government kept as small, local, and decentralized as possible. Have it handle cops, courts, roads, and a few other things, and not much else.

Most people don’t understand any of this, and think all libertarians are anarchists, which is where this “Libertarians are stupid! You need ROADS, don’t you?!?” crap comes from. Um, yes, you need roads, and I have no problem with government providing them.

So no, this 11% Johnson is getting has very little to do with people suddenly embracing libertarianism. They aren’t. They’re just pissed off at Trump and the Lizard Queen, two of the most hated candidates in American history, and this 11% will take just about anyone else at this point.

4. Gary Johnson is not a full libertarian. As repeatedly pointed out by many of his critics, Johnson has a lot of views that are left-wing rather than libertarian. I’m not going to list them all here because it doesn’t matter.

I’d still happily take him as president; a left-leaning libertarian is still orders of magnitude better than a socialist who can’t do math (Sanders), a career criminal (Hillary), or an authoritarian who doesn’t even want the job (Trump). But it’s true, he’s a left-leaning libertarian rather than a full-bore libertarian like myself.

Imagine libertarianism as a line chart. To the left are less libertarian people, and to the right are more libertarian people. On the far left end are Republicans who have a few libertarian leanings, including many Donald Trump supporters. A few notches to the right are left-leaning libertarians like Gary Johnson and right-leaning libertarians like Rand Paul. A few more notches, and you have true-blue libertarians like me and Ron Paul. A few more notches to the right, and you’ve got anarcho-caplitalists like Doug Casey and Stefan Molyneux. So libertarianism is a spectrum, just like any other political belief structure.

One of the many reasons the Libertarian Party hasn’t accomplished much is that many of these different groups waste their time fighting each other instead of getting their shit together. But that’s a discussion for another time. (And it doesn’t matter anyway, since the Western world is beyond help at this point.)

5. Gary Johnson is a quirky dude who isn’t taking this presidential run seriously. Again, I’d happily take this guy as president, but he’s completely screwed up in ways that would have been easily avoidable.

First he was asked about Aleppo, the nexus of the migrant problem in Syria, and he had no idea what it was.

Just about a week or two later, he was asked to name one foreign leader he looked up to. He couldn’t name one. Not one.

Stupid. Didn’t he learn anything from when George W. Bush was tripped up by these questions back in 2000? Or Sarah Palin back in 2008?

Look, dammit. If you’re going to run for president, you must to sit down and memorize (most of) the countries, the names of their leaders, and key cities. It’s not that hard, particularly when you have staff to help you. The press is always going to try to play gotcha with this crap, and if you don’t know the answers, it’s going to make national news and you’ll look like a moron FOREVER.

His defenders are saying that he couldn’t answer the question because there are no libertarian leaders. Doesn’t matter. He still couldn’t name any, even after the Aleppo disaster. The correct answer to such a question should have been something, like, “As a libertarian, there are no leaders I agree with since there are no libertarian leaders. Most leaders around the world are far too left-wing and socialist. But I do appreciate how Deng Xiaoping brought China out of communism, and I do like some of Justin Trudeau’s social policies, and Mauricio Macri seems promising.”

It’s not that tough. Instead, he couldn’t name one damn person. The closest he got was “The former president of Mexico,” who he couldn’t name. By the way, this was Vicente Fox, who was an absolute cluster fuck of a leader. Unacceptable.

Gary Johnson is also very quirky and odd looking, and has difficulty speaking a sentence or three without stuttering, pausing, or making weird facial expressions. Like it or not, visuals matter when you’re running for president. Image consultants are not expensive and should be used when you have weird mannerisms.

So that’s the deal on Gary Johnson. He’s a great guy and I wish him well, but he nor anyone like him will ever be President of the United States. That’s going to be left to criminals and socialists from here on out.

Comments

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You insult the Trump at your own peril. When the Trumpening occurs and the God-Emperor ascends, his divinity will wash over this nation and you naysayers and unfaithful will be incinerated by his radiance.

I have to say at first I was excited to see a Libertarian in the mix AND one that polled decently. Gary does seem like a good guy but I agree that there was never a chance and he is a bit too quirky as you’ve stated. Presence is key which is a part of Trump’s rise I think. He’s a big bombastic guy. I also felt Romney had that presidential presence in his mannerisms and speaking-very polished. Too bad he tried unseating not only an incumbent which is always tough but the first black incumbent. He should have ran in this election-I think he could’ve beaten the Lizard queen. Again not that it matters anymore-just read Simon Black’s blog to see the quicksand we’re sinking in.

Johnson is an Open borders, socially inept Weirdo.
You cannot have a Nation when you have an open borders policy. In this respect, it’s easy to see that the libertarians are useful idiots for the Globalists.

Yes you can, just as long as a) you don’t infuriate other countries by attacking them and killing their civilians and b) you don’t give ANY immigrants crossing the border ANY government assistance, government funds, or government funded services whatsoever.

“Yes you can, just as long as a) you don’t infuriate other countries by attacking them and killing their civilians and b) you don’t give ANY immigrants crossing the border ANY government assistance, government funds, or government funded services whatsoever.”

This is one of the few things I disagree with you on. What you’re essentially saying here and as well in your immigration article is that if people stopped behaving in the way they always have and always will, that yes, open borders works. We both know what has happened historically when people with wildly different values and beliefs live in proximity to each other, even before the welfare state.

I like the ideals of Libertarianism, but in practice I think it is foolishly naive to think you could ever have a libertarian government.
A small, decentralized government will be quickly and easily squashed by a stronger, more authoritarian centralized government that will waltz in and take over whenever they feel like it.

“You insult the Trump at your own peril. When the Trumpening occurs and the God-Emperor ascends, his divinity will wash over this nation and you naysayers and unfaithful will be incinerated by his radiance.”

I like Trump, but the “God” garbage is insane. People are literally going mad (left and right) about Trump. I told a friend that after I would reluctantly vote for Trump… he doesn’t seem to want to talk to me anymore… at all… Then I read shit on Heartiste’s blog and one guy goes on a tearful rant about how Trump is on par with George Washington, umm, what? How do you even begin to make that comparison? This is supposed to be the light of reason, the alt-right, the anti-whackjob lefty loonies, masculinity, etc.

Then you have weirdos like Milo who — lets be perfectly honest — is a complete narcissist. I almost pity the idiots who listen to him… on the one hand they are tired of the leftist bullshit (and I understand that), but the solution is not run into the direction that hates the leftists… How do you know that the cure is not worse than the disease? Milo is riding this to the top and it’s all about him. He simply found a wave and he’s riding it. I don’t wish inherent ill will on the gays, but if the leader of your movement is an effeminate gay guy, then the movement is nowhere near as masculine as you think it is.

This reminds me of ’08. I wasn’t happy that Obama was president, but when I saw people saying that Obama will pay the mortgage and give blacks/poor free cellphones… that should have been the first red flag that things are really going off the rails.

In the future, elections will be these massive emotional events that defay any sort of logic. We are already seeing leftist thugs becoming violent and Hillary inciting the said violence. It wouldn’t surprise me if on the right people begin to defend themselves and this thing explodes in ways that you can’t even predict. In the future, the best solution will be to a) live somewhere else or b) go camping for a really long period of time somewhere remote until the cities stop burning (buy lots of precious metals too.)

“A small, decentralized government will be quickly and easily squashed by a stronger, more authoritarian centralized government that will waltz in and take over whenever they feel like it.”

Yes, which is why tribes would form alliances and often surrender to the bigger and more organized invaders if they were promised to be left alone (for the most part.) I am interested in seeing how this will play out in space.

“Yes you can, just as long as a) you don’t infuriate other countries by attacking them and killing their civilians and b) you don’t give ANY immigrants crossing the border ANY government assistance, government funds, or government funded services whatsoever.”

Not every place can be Singapore (which is what you’re describing.) It’s somewhat of a stretch to call Singapore a country, when it’s more of a city-state. Part of the reason why Singapore is so effective at this is their small country. The further away the capitol, the more difficult to govern the nation.

Caleb, one question. In your AM 2.0 book (good stuff), you said you punished your kids by putting them into timeout. Was the location where they were in timeout claustrophobic at any point? I’m assuming that it was large enough (but very boring) so that the kid just sits there and is not happy about the punishment, yes?

What you’re essentially saying here and as well in your immigration article is that if people stopped behaving in the way they always have and always will

Shubert just gave you the example of Singapore. How about Hong Kong? How about the US prior to 1913? How about Switzerland prior to just a few years ago? I could give you many other examples of nations who didn’t attack other nations and who didn’t heap free money on illegal immigrants if I had more time to think about it.

Just because you pop your head up, look around in your little bubble of the 2016 Western world, and don’t see a certain thing, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exists. You’ve got to study geopolitics and history before you make declarative statements like, “People never do this.”

I like the ideals of Libertarianism, but in practice I think it is foolishly naive to think you could ever have a libertarian government.

Here we go again. How do you explain the US prior to 1913? How do you explain Hong Kong prior to the 1990s? They weren’t 100% libertarian, but they were reasonably close.

A more accurate statement is there will never be an anarchist nation. That’s true. But libertarian or libertarianish governments are possible; they just won’t last, as you alluded to. EVERY form of government (libertarian, capitalist, socialist, fascist, communist, etc) eventually turns into something else. It’s how human beings work.

That’s why it would be nice if we lived in a world with thousands of countries instead of just 196 or so. That way you could just move to whichever nations were currently going through their prosperous libertarian phase, rather than be stuck with a world full of mostly corporatist / socialist quagmires.

Not every place can be Singapore (which is what you’re describing.)

But some could, and that’s my entire point. We don’t need “every” country to be like this. That’s a very stupid argument.

Part of the reason why Singapore is so effective at this is their small country.

Actually I would say it’s not part of the reason, but 80-90% of the reason. Small countries almost always do much better (Hong Kong, etc). Big countries always turn into cluster fucks. This is why the USA should break up into several smaller nations, something I’ve been saying for 15 years now.

In your AM 2.0 book (good stuff), you said you punished your kids by putting them into timeout. Was the location where they were in timeout claustrophobic at any point

No. That’s cruel and unusual punishment. It was just a chair facing a wall or corner of a room.

Austin Petersen was orders of magnitude better than Gary “Bake the Cake” Johnson but he didn’t manage to convince the LP’s voters for the nomination. As you said in another post 2016 is the year that selling out became cool, and that’s what happened in the LP too, not only with Reps and Dems. The Johnson candidacy plus that hack he chose for VP are what made the LP the official party for the failed republicans.

I happen to be one of those Libertarian anarchists you mentioned. The reason why nobody should vote (or even be allowed to) is that democracy gives you a vote… in stuff you don’t have absolutely any right to have a vote in. Nobody has a vote on how much of your own income you should be allowed to keep, or whether your house should be expropriated to build a road or whatever else. If you stand on principle, voting is an act of aggression. Most of the objections on this are usually utilitarian: whether that’s not been proven yet that private roads/courts/policing would work well, but I believe that’s more of a matter of knowing how. For me a libertarian minarchist is just someone who still doesn’t know how might X or Y work in a private law society.

I believe private ownership and policing of roads, schools, streets and pretty much every other resource makes infinitely more sense than coercive control by a monopolist aka government. There are many articles out there on startup cities that work very similarly as how Rothbard suggested they would work, with private policing and all of its services provided privately. For instance I found this beautiful article that shows how a fully privatized city works, and this is something that is silently being replicated in many places: https://fee.org/articles/how-policing-works-in-a-privatized-city/

“Incorrect. Libertarians are less than 5% of the population with zero political power (as I just got done saying in the above article). They aren’t “useful” anything to anyone”

I meant in the sense that Libertarians add (however small) legitimacy by giving support for open borders which in turn helps the Globalist Aim of Worldwide Corporate Fascism. The point you make about immigrants collecting welfare etc is a red herring; The key point is the issue of mass forced integration with a religion that has proven over and over incapable of assimilating to the European/Western way of life. As Geert Wilders said “you cannot tolerate the intolerant”.

– ts a red herring in the sense that it doesn’t particularly bother me who collects welfare. I just don’t want a religion in my country that has a track record with the complicit help of Govt agencies and Media of raping, murdering, enforcing their beliefs on the host population e.g. Rotherham in the UK.
And Yes logically you do need a protected border to protect the citizens of your country, No boundaries, No nation.

…and that only proves my point because pre-civil war America was living in a relatively isolated bubble that would have been burst from the outside eventually, but we didn’t even have to wait for that. The decentralized, libertarian nature of it was unstable enough that it fractured from within, and instead of deciding that if half the country wanted to go they were free to do so (which would have preserved the libertarian nature), we decided to become a more centralized, authoritarian nation by persecuting a war against the separatists.
I don’t defend slavery or anything, but it still strikes me that the choice to preserve the union was not exactly on solid legal ground, and it would have been more in the spirit of the original founding fathers to let the union split.

I agree 100% with everything else you wrote in your comment, but this above is the one thing I disagree with anarchists on. Even if you showed the world a working, functioning anarchist “nation,” people would still say “Well, yeah, but I still don’t like it because…” and then embrace some kind of government again.

The problem is not ignorance. The problem is human nature.

The point you make about immigrants collecting welfare etc is a red herring; The key point is the issue of mass forced integration with a religion that has proven over and over incapable of assimilating to the European/Western way of life.

I have said repeatedly that what Europe is doing with their immigration is beyond insane and will likely destroy them. That doesn’t change anything I said in my article on immigration.

it doesn’t particularly bother me who collects welfare

And that is exactly the problem I have with right-wingers. They’re so over focused on issues like race and region, which are important, they then turn around and ignore the big economic issues that will eventually bankrupt your society.

You don’t mind your government putting a gun in your face and forcing you to give your money to losers who haven’t had a job in three years because they’re playing video games all day, just as long as those losers are are white and Christian.

I do mind. A lot. For many reasons.

logically you do need a protected border to protect the citizens of your country, No boundaries, No nation

I’m not advocating for no borders. That would be insane.

I’m advocating for clear borders, protected by the military against military threats, where travel is not very restricted *provided* you don’t attack other countries and don’t heap free taxpayer money on non-citizens.

Well, pretty authoritarian and centralized.

Dude. Lincoln was a tyrant during the civil war, as I’ve said many times, but to say that America in the late 1800s was “authoritarian and centralized” is just silly. I think you know that.

I agree 100% with everything you said about the Civil War though. Lincoln should have just left the South secede and go their own way.

Caleb just out of curiosity what is your beliefs on child labor laws? I’ve met liberatarians who are completely against them. Perhaps this is off topic but I’m curious.

It’s not off topic at all. We’re discussing libertarianism.

I am against child labor laws too, but as I said in the article, my beliefs are tempered by real-world attitudes and human behaviors instead of utopian Disney fantasies. Therefore here’s what I think:

1. There should be *no* child labor laws of any kind at the federal or state level. Each city should enact their own (or refuse to enact them). Then everyone can make the choice of what city to live in based on the laws of that city.

2. Child labor laws should never apply to anyone over the age of about 12. Info on that here:

3. You only need TWO child labor laws: the maximum hours of work per week allowed, and restricting kids from working in dangerous environments (with a specific definition of what “dangerous” means). That’s it. Two laws, perhaps one paragraph.

The problem with child labor laws is that they mutate into thousands of pages of bullshit legalese where where teenagers can’t get paid for their work and suburban parents are arrested because they let their kids play down at the park a block away unsupervised. (Yes, this happens in the US all the time. Reason.com documents these cases regularly). Playing at the park unsupervised is what all of us kids used to do in the 1980s when crime rates where higher than they are today. Stupid.

Libertarian policies in certain Asian countries can be explained by their authoritarian rule. Then you can have a rather free immigration policy and economic policies because you can crack down on troublemakers and nobody gets too much free stuff.

Libertarian policies in the US back in the days can be explained by the fact that women had no right to vote.

Libertarian policies in modern Western democracies are totally Disney as long as people who don’t contribute economically have voting rights (that includes men who don’t contribute and maybe an exception could be made for women who do). This seems to be true in Asia too, Japan is for example an economic mess, South Korea is also not a free economy.

We are stuck with big government as long as people who don’t contribute have influence. That may mean economic collapse, however I don’t believe all Westerners will submit to the unintegrable invaders. Too many angry White guys now.

“We are stuck with big government as long as people who don’t contribute have influence.” is a good point but it’s only part of the issue. I’d wager that most American’s do contribute-the true deadbeat lifetime welfare recipients are a minority. The country is getting more left wing and progressive with more people demanding everyone pay their “fair share” for an ever expanding entitlement program. Even those who contribute are looking for freebies like free college, free birth control, etc… Being someone who believes in personal responsibility is demeaned as not being compassionate. Once you start handing out entitlements good luck scaling them back without people rioting. It’s already happened in Europe.

CrabRangoon, you don’t need to be on lifetime welfare to contribute a net negative. People who have some bullshit job in the State or state-subsidized enterprises may also do so. Such people constituting a democratic majority is certainly the case in some European countries and while I don’t know enough about the US I suspect it may be close to be true or true there too.

Libertarian policies in modern Western democracies are totally Disney as long as people who don’t contribute economically have voting rights (that includes men who don’t contribute and maybe an exception could be made for women who do)

Yep. I have said pretty much that several times on this blog. Wide open democracy is not a good idea.

“Dude. Lincoln was a tyrant during the civil war, as I’ve said many times, but to say that America in the late 1800s was “authoritarian and centralized” is just silly. I think you know that.”

I think if you were a white male north of the Mason-Dixon line then yeah, things were still pretty good. For everyone else though? Ever read about what was going on during Reconstruction?
Lincoln’s actions set the precedent, and America followed and it has amplified ever since. So no I don’t think it is silly to view the US as fairly authoritarian, centralized and non-libertarian from the Civil War forward.

“‘Libertarian policies in modern Western democracies are totally Disney as long as people who don’t contribute economically have voting rights (that includes men who don’t contribute and maybe an exception could be made for women who do)’
Yep. I have said pretty much that several times on this blog. Wide open democracy is not a good idea.”

I like the system laid out by Heinlein in Starship Troopers: You have to serve to earn the right to franchise. Service is voluntary, so if you don’t want to participate and risk your life for your country that’s fine, but you don’t get a voice in making the decisions of the republic.

In a system like that I think there would definitely be social programs like welfare (likely more cost-effective for society to provide care [prevention] than dealing with the extra burden on law enforcement, emergency services, etc. [cure]), but they would be reasonable and likely guided by sound research and examination of the results of various trial programs to see what is actually effective in combating the problems faced by society.

Gary Johnson is not, and never has been, a libertarian. He is nothing but a social retard and a joke. The fact that the Libertarian Party failed to nominate the only real Libertarian (John McAfee) tells you that, just like every other political party, they don’t stick to their principles either. I used to think that the Libertarian Party was a sincere bastion of freedom. But it’s become just as corrupt as all the others.

Hey BD, speaking of the erosion of true freedom, and spaces in which true freedom can flourish, did you get my email a couple weeks ago about the death of Internet speech? Or is Yahoo filtering out emails with links in them? I’m still curious to hear your opinion on the matter.

Hey BD, speaking of the erosion of true freedom, and spaces in which true freedom can flourish, did you get my email a couple weeks ago about the death of Internet speech? Or is Yahoo filtering out emails with links in them? I’m still curious to hear your opinion on the matter.

Yes I got it and yes I’m going to write about it; many others have asked about that as well.

I’m traveling in Europe so I had to put this blog and much of my non-urgent email on hold for a bit. My schedule gets back to normal in a few days.

You could look into the recent case with Julian Assange. They shut down his internet at the Ecuadoran embassy because of a new rape accusation. Then reddit found out (/r/wikileaks) that it was fabricated by a shell corporation which owned a dating website and the CEO was friend with Hillary Clinton. Hillary is literally making her way to top via false rape accusations. That’s like the last case resort for a desperate woman, is to FRA a man. Happens to politicians, celebrities, athletes, you name it. In this gynocentric society, if they can’t silence you via shaming, they’ll FRA you into silence.

1. If you’re not a libertarian, there’s little point to voting for him.

2. If you are libertarian, he’s barely libertarian anyway.

3. No matter your political stripes, he’s an idiot and a kook. No, seriously. He didn’t know what Aleppo was. Nor do many people, but he’s running for POTUS. He couldn’t name ONE world leader that he admired. Or, seemingly, ANY world leader at all. He ‘forgot’ who the President of Mexico was. He couldn’t even remember Merkel or the leaders of Canada or the UK. Again, most Americans don’t care either, but he’s running for POTUS. He’s a nincompoop.

4. When told that his “sales tax only” tax plan would mean taxing goods at 28% to maintain comparable revenues, is possibly regressive, and other economic details, he just said that’s “too much in the weeds.” From a guy who wants to radically overhaul our entire system of government.

The guy is a clown. And Ron Paul was not “the one who got away” … that guy clearly hates blacks and has early onset Alzheimer’s. He’s less fit for POTUS than that bozo The Donald.